Playing to Win (24 page)

Andrew flinched inside at the hostility slathering his title. “Hello.” He dropped Joey’s hand and crossed his arms, trying to look calm.

“Hey. Guy.” Colin shook the dark-haired lad’s elbow. “This yin here—whom I am currently fucking—is the son of a marquess. That means he’s nobility. He’s met Prince Harry once, but ‘just the once.’” He started cackling, holding his stomach. “‘Just the once.’ Isn’t that precious?”

The heat of anger prickled Andrew’s scalp. Clearly Colin was hammered, but that didn’t make his words sting any less.

“Oooo-kay.” The guy at the bar tried to move away, but Colin grabbed his shirt.

“No! You’ve got to meet him. Lord Andrew, this is…” He turned to the lad. “Who is this?”

“Brandon.”

“Brandon! Och, that is the porniest name I’ve ever heard. Brandon’s in the Army. But shhh. He’s gay.” Colin put a finger to his own lips, poking himself in the nose.

“It’s not a secret, actually.” Brandon looked embarrassed. “They ended ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ before I signed up.” He wrenched his shirt out of Colin’s grip, then stepped up to Andrew. “Your dude’s pretty wasted.”

“I can see that.”

“I swear I didn’t know he was with you. He acted available. When I realized how drunk he was, I asked if he had a friend who could take him home, but he said the guy he came with wasn’t a friend and if he wanted to get home he’d have to run away again.” Brandon shrugged. “Any of that make sense?”

Andrew gritted his teeth, for a moment seriously considering letting Colin find his own way back to Glasgow. “He was sober fifteen minutes ago. Did you put something in his drink?”

“No, sir.” Brandon shook his head solemnly. “He had one, then I bought him another, then he had half of mine. He must have been pounding shots before I found him.”

“That’s not like him.” Now more worried than angry, Andrew turned to Colin, who was holding two cocktail straws in his mouth, angling them down like walrus tusks, then up like a warthog’s. “Come on, pet,” Andrew said. “Let’s go home.” He helped Colin slide off the red vinyl barstool onto unsteady feet.

“We’re bringing them, right?” Colin grasped for Joey, who was wisely standing several feet away. “I want them both. And you. I love you.”

Andrew sighed. How many drunken lovers had told him that ? Dozens. How many sober ones? None. “You don’t love me.”

“I do! I love everyone. Which includes you.” He poked Andrew’s chest with the cocktail straws, which he then examined with crossed eyes. “Bet I could tie these together with my tongue. Would that impress you?”

“Very much.” Andrew realized they’d yet to move an inch. “Bring them so you can show me.” He guided Colin away from the bar, taking a step toward the stairs.

“Ooh!” Colin lurched forward. “Gonnae let’s slide down the banister.”

“Oh dear.” Andrew looked at the two lads they were leaving behind. “Please tell me there’s an elevator.”

Joey pointed to the exit sign beyond the bar. “There’s a lift back by the loos.”

Rolling his eyes at the British-isms, Andrew nodded and started to turn away, then stopped. “Joey, may I introduce Brandon. Brandon, Joey. Goodnight.”

“Wait—they’re not coming?” Colin asked as Andrew steered him through the crowd toward the lift. “Brandon and what’s his name?”

“Joey. No, I’ve introduced them. Perhaps they’ll fall in love.”

“Ah. You think they’ll marry someday?”

“I hope so, and invite us to the wedding. We can wear our kilts again.” They reached the lift, and he let some of Colin’s weight rest against the wall as he pushed the button.

“I’m never wearing this kilt again.” Colin’s head drooped against his chest. “It makes chaos.”

The door opened to an empty lift. The light in here was brighter than in the bar, making it clear how steaming drunk Colin was. In their month together, Andrew had never seen him more than slightly tipsy. A devoted athlete, Colin always wanted to be at the top of his game, even for practice sessions. Which meant his tolerance was probably lower than most men his size.

“What happened?” he asked Colin. “Did that lad roofie you?”

“No, I just had a lot. A. Lot. Like…hang on.” He squinted at his fingers and thumb as he counted. “Five?”

“In a quarter of an hour?” Andrew swiped his hands up over his face. “I’ll see that bartender sacked.”

“No!”

The door opened, thankfully quite close to the club’s entrance. Andrew led Colin down the ramp to the front door, where he found his bouncer acquaintance still stationed at the ID check. “I need to speak to your manager.”

“I said no!” Colin jerked Andrew’s arm. “You cannae sack that man. He’s my friend.”

“He’s not your friend.”

“You’re not my friend either.” He let go and staggered backward, out onto the pavement. “I saw you kissing Joey!”

Bloody hell, is that what this is about?
“No, you saw
Joey
kissing
me
. Apparently you missed the bit where I pushed him away.”

“Maybe I did!” Colin shouted, as if this proved his point. “But then youse were holding hands.”

“I was trying not to lose him in the crowd. He walks so slowly for a New Yorker.” Andrew glanced at the club’s long queue, where everyone was watching them avidly. Then he stepped up to Colin, laying a hand on his arm and lowering his voice. “Look, in these three-way situations, it’s completely normal to be jealous.”

“I’m no’ jealous, I’m fine!”

“You’re drunk.”

Colin gave him a
well, obviously
look. “I’m Scottish!”

“So playing into the stereotypes now, are we?”

“Stereotypes?” Colin’s eyes burned with rage. “You’ve got me dressed in a fuckin’ kilt—the better to attract American cock, aye? I’m for sale the night, aye? All Scotland’s for sale the night. Me with my precious accent and adorable temper.” He jabbed his thumb against his own chest. “I’m like those shops in Edinburgh. Tartans and shortbreads and fuckin’ bagpipes. My arse is Scotland-land, and tonight, America’s got free admission!” Colin reached down, fumbling for the back hem of his kilt.

Oh no.
“Please don’t do that.”

“They want Braveheart, I’ll gie ’em fuckin’ Braveheart.” He bent over, raising his kilt to display his bare backside to the Broadway traffic. “Freedom! Freeeeeeeeedom!”

Part of Andrew wanted to laugh. Part of Andrew wanted to join Colin in this uniquely Scottish salute to the United States. None of Andrew wanted to be the grown-up in the room right now.

Then the bouncer said one word in a low, urgent voice. “Cops.”

D
ESPITE
HIS
RELATIVE
sobriety, Andrew struggled to keep up with Colin as they sprinted through Lower Manhattan. The athlete in his companion—or perhaps the young lad who’d run from bullies—had taken over. Andrew shouted ahead to Colin, directions to turn here and there, hoping to make it not worth the police’s effort to follow them.

Colin turned the next corner and stopped short. “Fuck.”

Andrew came to a grateful halt, panting hard, hoping that Colin’s shock was due to their location, not a phalanx of NYPD officers out to rid the city of indecent exposers.

“Is that what I think it is?” Colin whispered, gaping up at the immense skyscraper a few streets away.

“Ground Zero. Yes.” He hadn’t consciously directed Colin here, but now that they’d arrived, Andrew thought perhaps it would be good for him. “The memorial park is closed for the night, but we can get closer.”

They crossed Broadway—which here was called Canyon of Heroes, apparently—and made their way past St. Paul’s Chapel. “George Washington prayed here after his first inauguration,” Andrew said. “He had his own pew. Also, see that bell?” He pointed past Colin into the churchyard. “A gift from the Lord Mayor of London on the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.”

Colin gave a soft grunt of acknowledgment, his eyes fixed on the gleaming silver tower at One World Trade Center. As they passed the churchyard, Colin held out his arm like a child, letting his fingers drift over the vertical bars of the wrought-iron fence. The soft, rapid thump-clangs of skin against metal sounded strangely melancholy to Andrew.

They stopped at the end of the street leading to Ground Zero. Colin went to the low concrete wall outside the churchyard fence and slumped down onto it. Then he jumped up quickly. “Och, my baws. I keep forgetting.” He smoothed the back of his kilt beneath himself as he sat again, carefully this time.

Andrew sat beside him and leaned back against the fence. There were still a few pedestrians about, but the street had a hushed quality, as if every passerby walked more slowly, spoke more softly, out of reverence for what had happened here over a dozen years ago.

Colin sat forward, elbows on his knees, head bowed as if in prayer. Andrew waited, knowing there was nothing to be said. The white roses growing on the other side of the churchyard fence released their heady scent into the humid summer night air.

“This doesnae make it okay, you know,” Colin said finally.

“Make what okay?”

“The wars.” The word came out a strangled whisper. “Aye, they got attacked, but did they have to ruin the world?”

“Well, there’s loads of evidence that President Bush would’ve invaded Iraq no matter what. 9/11 was just an excuse. There was no connection.”

“I know.” Colin rubbed his forehead. “And we had to join his madness because of our ‘special relationship.’”

“That, and the fact it was down to us Iraq was a mess to begin with.”

“How?”

“Britain drew Iraq’s boundaries to keep the oil away from the Turks. We forced tribes who hated one another to form a country. Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds—that’s not a nation, that’s a recipe for a time bomb. Iraq was Britain’s cross to bear as much as America’s.”

“I guess.” Colin sighed. “Seeing
American Idiot
tonight brought it all back.”

“Your uncle?”

He nodded. “I wonder sometimes if James knew I was gay before I did. He never asked me, of course—I was only nine—but he mentioned mates of his who were gay and how they were cool, and how it didn’t bother him. It stuck with me. Later I looked back, during those years when I felt so fucking alone, and realized James would’ve been there for me.” Colin swiped his wrist over his nose. “He would’ve been there for me, if he’d not been turned into hamburger meat by an IED so President Gas Man could have his wee wargasm.”

Andrew thought of the battle scene in
American Idiot
, how the bodies had writhed on stage under red lights, how Colin’s posture had gone tight and straight in the seat beside him.

“Andrew…” he whispered, giving him a shock straight down his spine. Until now, Colin had never spoken his name without a mocking tone. “Andrew, can’t you see? If Scotland were independent, naebody would hate us. Naebody would bomb us. And nae more Scots would have to die in the desert.”

“I do see that,” Andrew whispered. How could he not?

“We could just be us, you know? Just us. Not part of an empire. Not part of the world’s dickhead police force.” Colin slouched forward again, elbows on his knees. “I’m not fuckin’ Braveheart. I don’t want freedom for freedom’s sake. I just want the freedom not to be dickheads.”

The catch in his voice thickened Andrew’s throat. He put his arm around Colin’s shoulders. His other hand found Colin’s arm, where he stroked the scars that lay like barbed wire over the landscape of skin. His mind searched for words of comfort, though he knew none could mend the gaping hole the war had left in Colin’s heart, a hole filled with rage and sorrow.

“Sorry I ruined our threesome,” Colin murmured, still staring at the pavement between his feet.

“It was a stupid idea, and awful of me to ambush you with it. We should’ve had a calm, rational, honest discussion.”

“But I calmly, rationally, honestly wanted two tongues on my cock.”

Andrew smiled. “I know you did, love. I wanted it for you too.” He set his chin on Colin’s shoulder. “I would’ve called it off with Joey. It wouldn’t have worked.”

“Because I’m a bam.”

“No. Because I don’t want to share you.”

Colin said nothing.

Andrew’s stomach tightened. Had he confessed too much? “Did you hear me?”

Colin jerked his head up. “Is there a bin nearby? I need it.”

Andrew looked around. “I don’t see one. They probably worry about bombs. Why do you—” He stopped when he saw Colin’s face, clammy and pale, how his throat pulsed with hard swallows. “No. Not here.”

“Aye.”

“No. Take a deep breath.” Andrew pressed Colin’s hand to the iron fence behind them. “Feel how cool that is? Go on and put your face against it. Remember how it helped before, in Edinburgh?”

“Mmph.” Colin obeyed, shutting his eyes hard. After two full breaths he said, “This city smells wrong.”

“Of course it does. It’s not home. Here.” Andrew produced a folded handkerchief from his sporran and gave it to Colin, who pressed it to his nose and mouth.

“You just happened to have a handkerchief?”

“A gentleman always has a handkerchief. I put one in your sporran when I packed it.”

“Oh.” Colin’s breath began to slow. “I think I might not boak after all.”

“Excellent.”

“But only if I get an Irn Bru. Have they got that here?”

“In America? No. In New York? Yes.” Andrew pulled out his phone and tweeted
Where can one find Irn Bru in Lower Manhattan? Asking for a friend.

While waiting for replies, he checked his Twitter lists. A glance at Colin’s timeline made him laugh. “You tweeted ‘OMG I am supre drunk!’ Super spelled R-E.”

“Aye, it was a play on the British spelling of words like ‘theater’ and ‘center.’” Eyes still closed, Colin pressed his face harder to the iron fence. “Because we’re in America. Get it?”

“That is legendary. I wish I’d tweeted that.”

“You can retweet it.”

“Are you mad? My followers would see by your profile you’re a gay Glaswegian footballer. They’d put two and two together in no time.” He looked at Colin. “It’s not that I’m ashamed to be with you. It’s more that I don’t want to complicate your life by publicly entangling it with mine.”